Christopher English

P a i n t i n g s   a n d   P o e m s

The Anchor and Kite

1998
48" X  36" (121.8 X 91.4 cm)

They are the anchor that tugs my kite.
In all the clever tricks to play
They are the ones that pull from beginning to end.
Those who had nothing gave me so much.
Having lived amongst the less fortunate,
Losing even life itself without dignity.
Knowing that at least there was the chance
To climb up and leave behind the forgotten
That could not. Little did I know.
Only, of course, you don't forget them.
Those who had nothing gave
The gleaming jewel to carry on
Behind an iron mask.

In the ability to fortify himself
With the dignity, ego, vanity and pride,
A persona totally cloaked in an image
In all its absurdities,
The make-up man put on his armour-plated helmet,
Masking inadequacies, living out fantasy in confidence tricks.
The fragile talent only granted by the grace of ability,
Expectancy only by its means.

The kite as mask, masked by life,
Pampered by normality, moaned like a pet.
He remembered those from his past, people who knew
Depression was a luxury they could not afford.
And in the present, noticed those who complained the most
Had the least wrong with them,
and those who complained the least had the most.

So my strength was drawn from the forsaken,
and from those forgotten.
Not from those whose life was so full of expectancy.

In comparison what did I want?
The life of a floating clown, adrift without anchor, had no meaning.
Having the mask of agility, a life granted by the grace of ability.
So dreams become true. 'Yes.' Was the answer instinctively,
As nature is only designed to survive.
Though only the anchor within my heart behind the mask
Really means anything.

*

Broken Walls

1987
35" X 48" (88.8 X 121.8 cm)

Lying flat, tilted back, watching the sun flowering
The window of the ward,
Birds soar in a horizonless sky,
The orthopaedic ward has become a world
Through the months,
Walls of houses have been torn down
To reveal humanity in the street.
A spectacle of people in a theatre of reality.
Racked limbs strung up in webs of strings and pulleys
For the man whose wife
In her graceful animal furs
Complained of having no holiday, and the mother in-law.
No doors are closed to hidden stresses,
Pain tells who you are.
The Airforce pilot flung out of a car,
Landing on his back, prospects of a crippled future.
The hallucinating patient who saw spirits.
The Greek cultured family around their injured son
While their mother breast-feeds the youngest.
The gypsies....
Religion, pornography, daily papers.
Lonely men, anxious and afraid.
Families gathering around their General Joe.
The breaking and pulling back together again
Bones, emotions, relationships.
People mellowed into coping,
For some,
Having been through it all before.
Resilient, astonishing attitudes
That had pulled through,
To have lived through,
To have seen through
A shattered importance.

*

1982
36" X 36" (91.4 X 91.4 cm)

So naive in the range of the dragon’s claws
That the innocent was scarred
In the twists and turns of time.
What was thought to be clear in innocence
Became a confusion in the waves of illusion.
So taken in by appearance
That it became the Judge
And entangled in the net of the shallow Fisherman.
The boat searched for answers
Moved by the tide.

*

A Game of Cards in a Ploughed Field

1982
36" X 47" (91.4 X 119.2 cm)

In one direction the card player ploughs
In a pattern of puzzles and riddles.
He plays to win
Behind guards of his own hand.
Safe in concealed reasons
He moves
For the sake of his own cards,
Unable to help those behind
Their own facades
Playing to their own ends.

*

The Snail, the Fly and the Blackbird
An Island, the Sky and the Sea

 1977
42" X 48" (106.6 X 121.8 cm)

The hermit comes
Out from his shell
Alone along the silver path of Snails.

A bluebottle Fly flew by
And saw with her big wide eye
An Island of coloured shells.
She stared and stared,
Watching the Snail
Glistening in gold.

From the Sea came a Blackbird,
Swooping down in a rage of ragged wings.
‘Quick! Hide.’ said the Fly to the Snail,
‘Here comes a witch, a raven hag,
To ravish at your flesh.’

The Snail said to the Bird
‘I have come from a mountain
Of many jewels.
I have found an opening
to my cave
Where light filters through
The depth of my coming.’

The Fly, with wings that filled the Sky with colour
Came down to the cave and said to the Snail,
‘Treasure is rarely found and kept
Within the ground of an Island,
Beware of the Sea.’

The Snail said to the Fly,
‘I heard your warning
But I could not have known,
I was just too naive.
The heart appeared hollow
To the crow
That cast its own shadow.
I came from a globe of colour
Within the shell of the Sea,
Of the same Earth,
From a depth within its World.’

Upon the shore of an Island
Comes a wave, the Blackbird,
Diluting the sands as it soaks the beaches.
As the Bird plunders its prey
In its coming and going
A piece of an Island
Slips away.

*

Swan In a Flame

1972
24" X 24" (61 X 61 cm)

*

A King Rose to Build a Palace

1986
30" X 36" (76 X 91.4 cm)

King, or clown of a poet,
What lies within your hollow crown?
Wisdom was never found in books, but life.
Never found in words, but lived.

So was nobility lost in the old
Because it was never found in youth,
Or were the high ideals cut down
By the long plain of years?

Was the King nothing more than just an arrogant old fool
Who thought himself better than the rest.
What was it that made him think that way?
Having nothing but the best.

The king rose to build a palace, his tower guarded by many thorns.
Upon its walls sturdy tendrils of ivy grew
Upon which snakes and lizards crawled, exhibiting tongues of poison,
Their heads with many horns.

The creatures grew bigger around the kingdom,
They became stronger, tightening their grip, as snakes do.
Yet still, the king was king inside.
Suddenly, the walls of his palace crumbled.
Knowing nothing but wisdom,
Useless in words
Once inflamed with the daggers of snares,
The king fell.
Upon the last and first step of his ruined tower
He looked up upon its hollowness
And with insight of the animals
That laughed at the pompous king
He again began to climb.

*

1978
58" X 39" (147 X 99 cm)

Shattering the perfect illusion
of opaque glass
With one live eye,
Mellowed by fires of the past
The one eyed tramp
Wanders about the derelict mansions
Of a clown,
Not able to walk on stilts
To reach through the mask of a clown
that he was.

As he tumbles
The dice of many faces turn
Seeing sides of a clown
That he would not have seen
Within his castle walls.

In a mirror - behind a clock -
on a mantlepiece
Are images of a clown
In a reflection of memories.
Through the eye of the clock
That tells the colour of his time
He sees that if he lost sight
Of his perception
He would soon lose himself
To illusion.

*

1986
30" X 49" (76 X 124.4 cm)

Hungry predators knock at the stable door
And voices within say
'Do not intrude upon our lock,
We are Secure and Stable.'
Knowing full well the outside
the fear to open holds.
Knowing that Stability and Security
Have to go together,
And understanding the knocking
In a land of shelters
The door is not wanted.
As guilty as the predator
I stay within.

*



All paintings oil on canvas